Raf Stevens of Corporate Storyteller

Raf has found that the more companies self-promote, the less likely they are to connect with audiences. It’s the same in Europe as it is in America.

The digital era is all about connecting with and engaging audiences.

This week, I had shared with some colleagues, including Raf, yet another example of a company undermining itself and any opportunity to build awareness … a consultancy located near DC claimed it had done speculative trend research on the baby boomer generation. Yet, there were no stats, no proof of substantive research.

The virtual consulting firm’s press release gushed self-promotion of the consulting firm. There was no story, no authentic awareness achieved, no media attention. Pure rubbish. Such things give PR a bad name, in my opinion, particularly in today’s highly competitive environments.

Here’s what Raf wrote back … and I could not agree with him more:

“Content marketing means that companies today are quite busy producing lots of online or offline content, writing corporate messages and creating images, video or audio. They are blogging and publishing articles highlighting their expertise with tips, advice and commentary.

“They issue all kinds of newsletters and publish their content much like you would on a blog. They use it to build a subscriber list that could come in handy when promoting products and services later. Or to write white papers showing off their knowledge and proving their expertise in their field. They do webinars and e-courses and all of that to demonstrate expert knowledge in a subject area and try to teach others. Obviously they bring in their credentials and experience to back that expert status up. They run video blogs or Web series. They podcast or Internet radio shows.

“All this marketing content rarely connects with an audience. Why? Because it doesn’t make them feel anything. All this stuff is really just marketing material thinly veiled as content, and it’s quickly becoming the kind of one-sided content that turns people off. What makes great content spread is how compelling and inspiring the message is, not how it slants into a direction that ultimately positions your company as the only one to buy from. Content should make connections. I would even go further: content follows connection.

“First you need to engage, build rapport and make your audience trust you. And pure information or marketing messages do not make that happen. All these new forms of storytelling can not change the fact that if you communicate in facts and figures, you communicate “brain to brain”. To be successful in any kind of communication, you need to go human to human, heart to heart, emotion to emotion.”

Thanks, Raf. Right on the money … again.

As Brooke Gladstone, host of NPR’s “On the Media” says: “Journalists are taught to talk and write in human terms. Tell me a story.” That’s how we humans are wired to communicate with each other. What’s so hard about that?

As Leonard Bernstein wrote so famously at the end of his opera, “Candide” – “Any questions?!”

Raf’s consultancy is Corporate Storyteller. Read Raf’s “No Story, No Fans”

Best known, perhaps, is Fred de Sam Lazaro’s Under-Told Stories Project at St. Mary’s, a program that combines international journalism and teaching. His remarkable stories air regularly on PBS NewsHour.

Thus, when I was contacted by Lasallian Brother Ed Siderewicz to help enhance awareness for a new program using the approach of brand journalism, I immediately agreed.

Brother Ed – as he prefers to be called – is one of the visionary leaders of the pioneering First Generation Initiative (FGI) at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. It is a special program developed to help and empower youth who are financially disadvantaged with a chance at higher education. The program’s focus is to provide the academic support and mentoring they need to help make their dreams come true.

Saint Mary’s FGI is one of the nation’s most comprehensive solutions for first-generation students. What makes FGI unique – compared to other programs for economically disadvantaged learners – is that the program partners with multiple middle and high schools in low-income communities to create a seamless education from middle school to high school to college.

“The reality and potential is that it has a transformational effect on the families and communities that surround these children in the urban communities from which they come. We have watched it,” Brother Ed says.

A few of the First Generation Initiative scholars ham it up.

Through discussion with Brother Ed and Dr. Jane Anderson, the distinguished academic director of the program, we developed consensus that a storytelling brand journalism website was the best direction. Not hard news stories but rather stories, openly and transparently told, about personal value and importance.

In order to achieve the program’s outreach objectives as quickly as possible, we would bring alive the core value and purpose of First Generation Initiative through the faces, voices and stories of students who benefit from the program.

FirstGenerationStories.org has become our platform for the stories.

Driven by the power of WordPress, using a custom theme by Solostream.com and design by TM Design, we built the site and published 12 stories within two weeks. What has happened since is pure magic – the site’s popularity and online ranking have taken off like a rocket!

• U.S. online ranking of about 100,000, according to Alexa.com, within two weeks … and still climbing! That’s almost unheard-of.

It was a contrarian journalistic approach to quickly building awareness and appealing. Rather than the typical, boring (and somewhat narcissistic) style of talking “about” a program, we asked students to share their personal stories – hardships, challenges, achievements and dreams.  I found them to be astonishingly candid. This credible approach … first-person storytelling … has catapulted awareness and interest for First Generation Initiative. Its value immediately shines.

The lesson to be learned - if a variation on brand journalism works so effectively for this trend-setting university program, think how powerful it can be at other centers of higher education to underscore the critical importance of education in America.

On a personal note … I found the week I spent at Saint Mary’s to be deeply, profoundly inspiring. First Generation Initiative is one star in a galaxy of remarkable programs at the Lasallian university, an important center of leadership in higher education.

FirstGenerationStories.org

Here is the full story from Ragan.com:

Your university provides full-ride scholarships to needy kids from families that never sent anyone to college.

Victims of gang muggings, a young immigrant whose parents were murdered in Sierra Leone, an inner-city kid who once saw his father kill someone.

How to get out the word and increase your donor base to support a program of such promise?

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota turned to a brand journalism guru to create a storytelling platform that presents of the lives of students in its First Generation Initiative.

The university recently launched a website—created by communications strategist and former CBS News correspondent David Henderson—that offers lessons for nonprofits and corporations striving to catch the public’s attention. For starters, tell stories.

Reaching the media

“In today’s news media world, an organization or company really needs to know how to skillfully take the story to the media if they want coverage,” Henderson says.

“Newsroom budgets have been cut back so much that if you are located more than 30 miles outside a metro area, there’s less of a chance the media will cover your story unless there’s a four-alarm fire.”

St. Mary’s is a Lasallian University located in Winona, Minn. The Roman Catholic order has founded inner city schools for economically disadvantaged students, says Brother Ed Siderewicz, a special assistant to the president who helped found four such schools in Chicago.

“We’re taking these kids into the system in sixth grade that are years behind, performing at the second-grade level, and really giving them a rigorous program, support and everything,” Siderewicz says. “It’s a full-court press to get them up and on into some of these high schools in Chicago and other cities.”

A $35,000 scholarship

In 2008, Brother President William Mann called on the college to expand its mission to economically disadvantaged students. St. Mary’s provides the young men and women in its program with room, board, tuition, and books, at a total cost of $35,000 per student per year. To endow the initiative, the college needs $42 million.

“We saw quickly that we really had to get our story out there to rally some resources,” Siderewicz says.

He ran across the idea for the site after attending a Ragan conference in Dallas in October. The brother found himself mingling with communicators from places like Southwest Airlines and FedEx. “I felt like a fish out of water,” he said.

But it led him to Henderson, whose work Siderewicz had seen at the conference. He felt Henderson understood what the program was about.

Henderson went to Winona in January with his high-definition video and camera gear, spending a week interviewing students on campus. It became clear that the emotional power lay not in blabbing about programs, but in the stories of the students. He focused the site on them.

“I found this a profoundly moving experience,” Henderson said. “I’m trying to think of a client that has moved me as much as these kids.”

Henderson wrote stories of 250 to 350 words each on individual students, and he conducted video interviews. All video is in broadcast-quality, high-definition format and is available on the Internet. These days much TV news video is exchanged online rather than via satellite because the Web costs nothing, Henderson says.

The website is hosted by Hostgator.com and runs on WordPress. This is increasingly the platform of choice of major corporations and media, such as Lockheed Martin and The New York Times, Henderson says.

Web success

FirstGenerationStories.org has been online for less than a month, and by Tuesday it was among the top 74,000 in a listing of U.S. websites ranked by popularity, according to Alexa.com, a Web information company. This is an amazingly fast rise, Henderson says. Google analytics show that not only does it have a big audience, but people are spending time on the site.

Henderson says he typically charges as much as $25,000 to $30,000 a month to get a company newsroom up and running for corporate clients. St. Mary’s is paying a fraction of that because Henderson believes in the work, though he won’t disclose the cost.

The First Generation Initiative doesn’t start when the students show up on campus. St. Mary’s partners with schools in the Midwest and Arizona, Siderewicz says. In high school, kids participate in an academic boot camp every summer for four years.

“There’s a pipeline we’re building from grade school through college, K through 16,” Siderewicz said.

Henderson designed the project so that St. Mary’s can sustain it. He has trained staff at St. Mary’s to run the site and write the student bios, and the college has an IT department that can handle technical issues.

If corporate communicators have trouble getting buy-in for new approaches, they’re not alone. Back at St. Mary’s, some university officials were skeptical, Siderewicz says.

“It’s a bit of a clash of cultures, to be honest,” he says. “Initially they weren’t thrilled with the idea, but they were open to it. Intrigued. And they’re trusting it at this point. … It’s beginning to energize folks.”

Social media spreads the word

To increase the reach of the stories, students and staff have been tweeting, sharing links on Facebook, and emailing friends and family.

First Generation scholar Daniela Martinez, 20, is the daughter of Honduran immigrants. Her father was imprisoned when she was in eighth grade, and her mother worked two jobs to keep the family afloat. She plans to go to law school after college.

Though university officials emphasize reaching potential fundraisers, Martinez says she wants the site to send a message to kids who might not think they can go to college.

“We’re definitely trying to tell people out there that don’t go to school for lack of money that there is hope,” she says.

Boeing uses it to show us what an Air Force base test flight is really like. So does Louisiana Seafood, as a way for fishermen and seafood processors to tell their stories after the devastating BP oil spill. Imperial Sugar Company used it to overcome a corporate crisis.

It’s called “brand journalism,” a new form of communications for business that’s rapidly emerging as the digital revolution continues to evolve. And it’s igniting excitement because of the way it boosts awareness for a company, often faster than social media, advertising or PR.

The reason why? Brand journalism takes a different direction, more aligned with this era of engaged conversation and transparency. It showcases authenticity. Consider what you choose to spend your time reading, when you’re online — news or advertisements? Stories about real people or self-serving promotions?

Harnessing all of the appeal and credibility of news — and tapping into people’s curiosity about what’s really behind a company — brand journalism brings a new dimension to the interactive and social media power of the Internet. It enables companies and organizations to tell their own stories and become trusted information resources for all stakeholders and the media.

At the heart of brand journalism is a real-time online news site, developed by a company working with a team of skilled and accomplished journalists, and constantly updated. Legitimate news features and expert perspective from opinion-leaders, together with eye-catching news photos, will help your company differentiate itself from competitors. Your company will become a trusted news resource.

Here’s what any brand journalism site needs:

• Feature stories and profiles that call out the uniqueness of a company’s products, services, people and community. Key: Use clear, ordinary language that attracts curious readers.
• Third-party thought-leaders. Regular columns by industry analysts, experts and trade association leaders about trends and their perspective on your business sector as a whole.
• Brevity. Keep stories short — about 250 words. Within that tight space, bring alive purpose, vision, and why something is special.
• Authenticity. Keep things real by shining a light on employees who are making a difference.
• Balance. A steady flow of industry news through excerpts and live news feeds underscore balance, transparency and openness — all tenets of legitimate news.
• C-suite buy-in. It’s one of the most essential elements. Without a commitment to having an authentic and balanced website, any brand journalism effort is likely to wander into promotional terrain.

While brand journalism has evolved as a movement by many names since the 1980s, it has never reached a level of more influential power than today, with all the engaging, connected and interactive online tools at our fingertips.

Brand journalism is one of today’s most effective methods to bring alive the vision, passion and solid purpose of innovative companies determined to achieve leadership in today’s fiercely competitive world.

This piece originally appeared in Ragan.com.

The Northeast region of the United States, especially New England, has been ravaged by natural disasters in 2011. The remnants of Hurricane Irene wiped out not only roads but severely damaged towns from New Jersey to Vermont. A freak Halloween snowstorm caused even more damage.

When coverage of a disaster ends, a false impression is often created that the suffering, damage and need for assistance has passed, that everything is pretty much back to life as usual. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

As I write this, there are towns in New England still struggling to rebuild, months after Irene. The fact there is no longer media attention doesn’t help local and state officials make a case for assistance. The disaster has become out of the media, out of mind. How can officials continue to make a case to secure much-needed continuing help? Sustained and active awareness-building – especially with online news sites – is essential to support rebuilding and funding efforts.

My counsel to such communities is to report your own news.  Keep your story alive.

Tell your own stories through text and photos. Deliver your own news updates. Because at this point, there’s a good chance that no one else will unless you keep the story fresh, timely and human.

Here’s how, using the journalist approach of brand journalism or storytelling that I write about:

1. Register a domain name, such as <yourtown>news.org at Godaddy.com. The cost is about $11 a year.
2. Get website hosting from a provider, such as Hostgator, for about $100 a year.
3. Enlist a local blogger to set up a news site, using WordPress.org, the powerful and free software used by many mainstream news organizations. It won’t take someone more than a couple of hours to get it online.
4. Use a professional-looking theme or template, such as those available from Solostream.com, a Connecticut company that was also hit by the storms. By the way, the people at Solostream.com can handle the whole process of getting you online.
5. Get an army of local residents to take digital photos and write news updates, each story no more than about 100 words.
6. Learn to post stories and digital photos on WordPress. It’s quite easy, and there are many helpful how-to videos on YouTube.com.
7. Update the news site at least three (3) times each week.

Such a news site for a community severely damaged by natural disaster will keep the story alive. It will be a valued resource for local businesses and government officials to seek continued assistance. It will carry the message to Washington, across the country and around the globe.

Especially in today’s media environment of celebrity and soundbite snippets and when what we have known traditionally as mainstream news media is vaporizing, we have powerful online tools available at minimal cost to assure that responsible news coverage can continue. Report your own news.

“We have celebrified the news to the point where we are losing the news, where it is more about what some people think than what they know.”

Dave Marash

For the first time in history, mankind is developing a universal language: video. People now communicate with video on two billion computers and more than one and a half billion television sets, and by 2013 you can add another one billion video-capable people regularly accessing the web from their cell phones. The most popular spoken and written language is English, with 1.8 billion users. Looks like video already wins.

No wonder. Video is the distillation of the four ways people exchange information—speech, print, sound, and pictures. Video can convey more information more powerfully to more people in more places—and more quickly—than TV, radio, print, or the voice of the evangelist. And since, historically speaking, this age of video is relatively new, people are still getting better at acquiring and distributing their information via video.

Good news for the future of television news, right? “Luckily,” says Alex Wallace, an NBC News senior vice president, “we’re TV; we’re also based on pictures.”

Yes. Logically, the video revolution and television news should thrive together. But just as the rest of the world is alive with video information about a bullet-train crash in China or revolutions in Bahrain or Syria, America’s television screens, especially on cable news, are tuning out the world. When YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter show so much video of real life, why do ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox show us so little?

Data from long-term monitoring of American television news by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, as well as observations from our own much shorter-term sampling of American TV news outlets and a handful of foreign news channels, reveal several things:

• CNN has made a sharp turn away from video reporting. Fox News Channel now shows more video than CNN, while MSNBC, after some excellent reporting of the Arab Spring, rarely uses any video. Most of what it does broadcast is sound bites from the campaign trail, talking-heads-coal to talking-heads-Newcastle.
• At the networks, the loss is not in airtime but in authenticity, as “new ways to cover the news” increasingly substitute for journalists actually reporting from the scene.
• Worse, and displacing far more airtime from reporting, is the amount of talk. Interviews, panels, conversations among anchors, pundits, scholars, and “experts” which, at best, produce intelligent but evergreen generalizations by people who haven’t “been there” for a while, are preempting the current and specific observations available only from those who are there.

While more and more of the world is “speaking” video, American TV news is ignoring it, in favor of cheaper but less informative ways to report the news.

The project for excellence in journalism monitors American television news, breaking down content into three categories: domestic stories, foreign stories involving the US, and foreign stories with no direct US tie. They also separate programs into components, like video packages, interviews, stories the anchor reads, and live appearances by correspondents. To Mark Jurkowitz, the former television beat reporter for The Boston Globe who now watches TV news for PEJ, the video packages are where you find “sophisticated, on-scene, edited reporting.”

Click here to read the full story in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Used by permission.

There was a time—not too long ago—that PR initiatives were measured largely by newspaper clippings.

PR agencies would concoct ratios of readers per clip, claiming that two-and-half or so people read the story. In reality, it was all just a guess. It was an expensive and highly misleading approach to whether a communications plan worked or failed.

Chart example

Times have changed, and in today’s digital era, we have many accurate and effective ways to measure whether our communications work is making progress or needs a course correction.

By examining and balancing many data points, we can clearly see how things are going. But a measurement matrix, as I call it, starts in the initial planning stages.

What to do

Any communications or PR program must have identified objectives. Those goals are intended to favorably impact a company in order to justify the expenditure of funds and resources. So, draw up a grid.

The X axis on the left is a list of specifics that can be affected by the program. The Y axis along the bottom is a timeline for periodic measurement. Each X item is to be plotted at a particular time, such as every week, month or quarter on the Y axis, at the bottom.

X axis elements must include items that reach into every corner of an organization or company. Otherwise, how can you get a clear picture of how a communications program is working? Some examples for establishing an initial benchmark, right at the beginning:

1. Website ranking. What is the data on comparative ranking as measured by Alexa.com or Compete.com? What are the numbers of unique site visitors as measured by Google Analytics, Woopra or actual server data?
2. Social media shift. Note the level of engagement, stumbles at StumbleUpon and retweets.
3. Media calls. How many unprompted calls do you get from the media?
4. How many reporters are actually writing about your company? Chances are the number is not more than a handful which is OK. View them as important influencers. For example, Apple Computer focuses on two reporters who pretty much drive what others write. By developing close relationships with David Pogue at The New York Times and Walt Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal, Apple is able to use two high profile influencers to shape other media coverage.
5. How often does the mainstream media write about your company?
6. How many and who are the bloggers who cover your company or organization?
7. Stock value. What is the stock price at the start of the communications program?
8. Sales or membership. Note the company’s sales, membership or other measures of influence and value.
9. C-suite enthusiasm. I know this is subjective, but if top executives begin getting calls of praise or invitations to speak, that’s important to know and measure.

You get the idea. All of this data is plotted. If it goes up, good. If anything goes down, you can fix it fairly quickly.

The main point is demonstrating that each and every communications program has an all-encompassing purpose that embraces, engages and benefits the whole. A measure matrix is part of how to create value-driven communications.

[Originally published by Ragan.com on November 11, 2011.]

Master Control at VideoLink.

I had the great pleasure recently to visit VideoLink’s television center – headquartered in Newton, MA, near Boston – as the guest of President and CEO Rich Silton, SVP of Sales and Marketing Lloyd Bunting and Director of Marketing Kendra Dennis.

As someone who has spent much of his life in television, I can say that the VideoLink television center is quite a complex. Corporations, TV networks and cable news are using the studios and technical facilities 24/7.

At the core of VideoLink’s business is the ReadyCam – remotely controlled television cameras at companies, organizations, universities, government offices and NGOs – that enable experts to quickly get on the air, whether it’s PBS NewsHour, ESPN, CNN, Fox News or any network or local stations.

Kendra Dennis, VideoLink's director of marketing.

Having a ReadyCam is invaluable, in my opinion, for any company that really cares about competitive leadership, and here’s why … TV News programs today are more studio-anchored due to budget constraints. There’s less likelihood they’ll come to you. A ReadyCam enables you to get on the air for a low cost. Everyone wins.

VideoLink has about 122 ReadyCam systems in operation across the country. It’s not uncommon to see up to seven live shots being handled at one time for clients from VideoLink’s Newton television center.

In addition to Newton, VideoLink has studio locations in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Irvine, CA and Manchester, NH.

In the sprawling state-of-the-art Newton television center (once a furniture manufacturing plant long ago), everyone from Barack Obama to Dr. Phil to Steven Tyler to David Ortiz have been on camera from the studios. VideoLink regularly handles remote productions for Chris Matthews, Bill O’Reilly and Jim Cramer.

What’s really special is that this is a communications company that has advance expertise in all facets of using video … television … to help capture attention in today’s very noisy and competitive world. Whether satellite or Internet TV, live or on tape, VideoLink helps its clients deliver immediacy, that critical, timely and relevant element to enhance awareness. It’s quite a place.

Ochman made the point that as your company or agency scrambles to get up to speed on social media, it is wise to remember that “guru” is something someone else calls you. Conversely, the consultants others are likely to call gurus:

• Bring experience to the table;
• Sell solutions, not formulas;
• Don’t promise that social media will provide a quick fix for your bottom line.

We now see the same thing happening unfortunately to the practice brand journalism as self-annointed “experts” without achievements, case histories or news credentials jump on-board.

Just a few months ago, a Google search of the term showed just a handful of accomplished people who were either working in the field of brand journalism or exploring its possibilities in their roles as communications experts – people like David Meerman Scott, Cristina Muntean in Central Europe, Aurélie Charpentier in Paris, Seth Godin and Brian Solis and me, the guy wearing three hats in that group as pioneer, journalist and practitioner.

Caveat emptor.

Today, while there is healthy discussion about the term, brand journalism, and its potential in the field of communications, there is also a predictable cast of characters hanging out their marketing shingles as snake oil salesman, social media guru, and now, “brand journalist.” Let the buyer beware.

Chief Executive magazine recently published a survey showing that “Internet media channels” are the second most important new form of communications that CEOs consider valuable, behind social media. It is not the conventional online newsrooms – which are nothing more than press release graveyards – but actual, real-time online media … authentic news resources.

The way I view it, brand journalism is a significant and valuable component of strategic communications. Yet, I would caution any company considering brand journalism to (1) hire experience, not hype; (2) expect measurable solutions, not formulas; and, (3) consider brand journalism to be one of many important elements in an organization’s communications strategy.

In the contemporary connected, online, noisy, competitive and fast-changing digital revolution, we are constantly bombarded by thousands of images and messages each day. We become immune and find most predictable and boring. But once in a while, a clever image catches our attention.

At my company, News Strategies LLC, we practice online brand journalism for clients. In other words, as working journalists, we use the credibility and influence of legitimate news to tell corporate stories to achieve competitive differentiation and brand leadership for clients. We do corporate storytelling to make a company’s news more appealing.

There are exceptional times when regardless of the story we might write, one great news photo brings a magical quality that reaches out and catches the attention of readers even better than the best-crafted prose.

Let me share an example …

Louisiana oysterman Byron Encalade was telling photojournalist Kerry Maloney about how financially and emotionally difficult the months had been on his family since contamination from the April 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The massive oil spill had ruined his oyster business along with the livelihoods of many other people who live and work in the Gulf coast region.

Kerry Maloney's photo of Louisiana oysterman Byron Encalade.

As Encalade was speaking, she captured his image that told the whole story. It conveyed a feeling of despair and human suffering in one digital image.

Maloney is a member of my company’s brand journalism news team. She is a highly accomplished news photographer based in New Orleans, Louisiana, who has a natural instinct about telling stories through photographs. Maloney believes that a photo must be both emotional and personal to connect with a viewer … to capture attention. She engages her subjects in conversation as she is taking photographs and genuinely listens to their stories. She cares about what they say. That human quality of connecting is seen in her photographs.

Photojournalist Kerry Maloney

Her image of Encalade on his oyster boat shows a middle-aged man in pain and struggling for his livelihood. It also shows a man with dignity, pride and courage, I believe. You may see other emotions. Yet, what we share is that our attention is drawn to the image. We see a story and want to know more.

The magic occurs through the technique of impromptu, on-location news photography that is not staged or stiffly posed but rather captures a memorable moment in time that may connect with us on an emotional level and tells a story.

People with digital cameras, visual imagination and creativity now rule the world of photography. What I personally find exciting is the trend toward what is being called “street photography” – a paparazzi style of photography that captures ordinary people going through life. It is contemporary news photography at its best. That is the style of photography that gets our attention and works best with brand journalism to tell stories.

Clever news photographs are essential to corporate storytelling and making lasting memories. Gifted photographers like Kerry Maloney prove it every day.